Pitts: Happy endings for headline highlights

I'm going to do something I probably don't do often enough, and that's update you on a few of my columns from the last several weeks.

First, you may recall I wrote earlier this month about the Raeford-Hoke Museum auctioning off a Cessna airplane as a fund-raiser. On March 15, the plane sold for slightly more than $27,000 in a sealed-bid auction, according to Hoke County Commissioner Ellen McNeill, who first alerted me to the story.

They had wanted to raise $24,000.

"We had six bids, and most of them were less than $24,000," McNeill wrote in an email. "So we were getting nervous, when David (Willis, of the museum's board) opened the last one from James E. Giles for the amount of $27,101.

"Everyone starting clapping. That will help us a lot with the 'Parker House.' "

The museum is having that historic house moved to its grounds on Highland Street in Raeford.

Carole Ann Williams donated the plane, which belonged to her late husband, Billie Lee Williams.

With layoffs looming at the House of Raeford turkey plant, Hoke needs the good news.

New name

The name change is complete at a Murchison Road business that once went under a controversial title. The new name for Nabil Kahtani's convenience store is Nabil's Munchies. Some residents thought the original name, IBlunt & Munchies, promoted marijuana, because "blunt" is popular slang for the drug.

Kahtani took swift action - painting over the "IBlunt" part on two signs that featured the name. Later, he put in the new name, spending money to change all of the business licenses.

But more credit belongs to Ernest Brown Jr., a Fayetteville State University grad student, who told me about the name. And Kahtanis' swift and meaningful response to community concerns speaks well of him as a business person.

'Parchman' success

"The Parchman Hour," which I had much praise for, completed its run at the Cape Fear Regional Theatre on Sunday.

It was a powerful, song-filled narrative about the Civil Rights-era Freedom Riders. It apparently connected with audiences.

"We sold out the entire last week of the run, and over 400 students were able to come to special student matinees," Tom Quaintance, the theater's artistic director, wrote in an email. "We more than doubled our original attendance projections.

"It was also a huge success in terms of new audiences and diversity. For hundreds of people this was the first time they had ever been to a play at Cape Fear Regional Theatre."

Kudos to the theater.

Samuel after hours

I wrote about late-night bottle feedings with my newborn, Samuel. People have asked how he's sleeping, and I have to say his habits have changed. His pediatrician puts it this way: "He's got his days and nights mixed up."

Pray for us, y'all.

But he's healthy, eating well and already 2 months old.

Columnist Myron B. Pitts can be reached at pittsm@fayobserver.com or 486-3559.

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